Lost in NYC: A Subway Adventure

What a great book to read just after my most recent trip to New York City!

Lost in NYC: A Subway Adventure is a a wonderful romp through the big city, as Pablo, new to the area, gets lost during a school field trip to the Empire State Building.

New friend Alicia tries to help the pair get back to their group. Along the way, we all learn more about the subway system and how it was built. The images capture the crowding and busy-ness of the big city without being frightening or overwhelming. Instead, as written by Nadja Spiegelman, it shows how many different ways there are to get places, and how many different people travel through the area.

The book also includes a little “Where’s Waldo”-style game, as artist Sergio García Sánchez drew himself into the crowd taking the pictures he used for reference. Readers can look for him and his camera-phone on most of the pages. It’s impressive, how he sometimes changes up the usual left-to-right, top-to-bottom page flow to demonstrate all the travel directions.

Text pages in the back talk more about subway history, with vintage photos; show some facts about the Empire State Building; and answer why there aren’t trains for some letters, including I, P, and X. The endpapers show the subway map and an expanded view of Pablo’s trip.

It’s a lovely package with lots of fun and information. A kid going to the city for the first time would be an ideal audience for this story, although anyone can sympathize with the feeling of being overwhelmed by a new location. There’s also a Spanish edition, Perdidos en NYC. (The publisher provided a review copy.)